Katsu Kaishu - consummate samurai, streetwise denizen of
Downtown Edo, founder of the Japanese navy, statesman par excellence and always
the outsider, historian and prolific writer, faithful retainer of the Tokugawa
Shogun and mentor of men who would overthrow him ­ was among the most
remarkable of the numerous heroes of the Meiji Restoration.

Kaishu's protégé was Sakamoto Ryoma, a key player in the overthrow
of the Tokugawa Shogunate. Surely Ryoma would agree that he owes his historical
greatness to Kaishu, whom Ryoma considered 'the greatest man in Japan'. Ryoma
was an outlaw and leader of a band of young rebels. Kaishu was the commissioner
of the shogun's navy, who took the young rebels under his wing at his private
naval academy in Kobe, teaching them the naval sciences and maritime skills
required to build a modern navy. Kaishu also imparted to Ryoma his extensive
knowledge of the Western world, including American democracy, the Bill of
Rights, and the workings of the joint stock corporation.

Kaishu was one of the most enlightened men of his time, not
only in Japan but in the world. The American educator E. Warren Clark, a great
admirer of Kaishu who knew him personally, called Kaishu 'the Bismark of Japan',
for his role in unifying the Japanese nation in the dangerous aftermath of
the fall of the Tokugawa. Like Ryoma, Kaishu was an adept swordsman who never
drew his blade on an adversary, despite numerous attempts on his life. Indeed
the two men lived in dangerous times. 'I've been shot at by an enemy about
twenty times in all,'Kaishu once said. 'I have one scar on my leg, one on
my head, and two on my side.' Kaishu¹s defiance of death sprung from
his reverence for life. 'I despise killing, and have never killed a man. I
used to keep [my sword] tied so tightly to the scabbard, that I couldn¹t
draw the blade even if I wanted to.'

Katsu Kaishu, who would become the most powerful man in the
Tokugawa Shogunate, was born in Edo in January 1823, the only son of an impoverished
petty samurai. The Tokugawa had ruled Japan peacefully for over two centuries.
To ensure their supremacy over some 260 feudal domains, the Tokugawa had strictly
enforced a policy of national isolation since 1635. But the end of the halcyon
era was fast approaching, as the social, political and economic structures
of the outside world were undergoing major changes. The nineteenth century
heralded the age of European and North American capitalism, and with it rapid
developments in science, industry and technology. The development of the steamship
in the early part of the century served the expansionist purposes of the Western
powers. Colonization of Asian countries by European powers surged. In 1818
Great Britain subjugated much of India. Through the Treaty of Nanking, which
ended the first Opium War in 1842, the British acquired Hong Kong. The Western
encroachment reached Japan in 1853,when Commodore Matthew Perry of the United
States Navy led a squadron of heavily armed warships into the bay off the
shogun's capital, forcing an end to Japanese isolation and inciting fifteen
years of bloody turmoil across the island nation.

Until Perry¹s arrival, pursuers of foreign knowledge existed
outside the mainstream of Japanese society. Kaishu was an outsider, both by
nature and circumstance. But when his sword master urged him to discontinue
fencing to devote himself to the study of Dutch, with the objective to learn
Western military science, the young outsider balked. That it was frowned upon
for a direct retainer of the shogun to study Dutch had little, if any, impact
on Kaishu. He was innately inquisitive of things strange to him. He was also
filled with a burgeoning self-confidence. But the idea of learning a foreign
language seemed to him preposterous. He had never been exposed to foreign
culture, except Chinese literature. It wasn't until age eighteen that he first
saw a map of the world. 'I was wonderstruck,' he recalled decades later, adding
that he had now determined to travel the globe.

Kaishu's wonderment was perfectly natural. His entire world
still consisted of a small, isolated island nation. But his determination
to travel abroad was strengthened by his discovery of strange script engraved
on the barrel of a cannon in the compounds of Edo Castle. The cannon had been
presented to Edo by the Netherlands, and Kaishu correctly surmised that the
engraving was in Dutch. Thus far he had only heard about 'those foreigners,
the Dutch', who lived in a small, confined community in the distant Nagasaki.
'Those foreigners' had occasionally fluttered through his mind as mere phantasm,
the stuff of youthful imagination. But now, for the first time, he saw in
his mind's eye, however vaguely, the people who had manufactured the cannon,
and who had engraved in their own language the inscription upon its barrel.
Those undecipherable letters of the alphabet, written horizontally rather
than vertically, served as cold evidence of the actual existence of people
who communicated in a language completely different from his own, but who
until now had only existed as so much hearsay. Since these foreigners were
human beings like himself, why shouldn't he be able to learn their language?
And once he had learned their language, he would be able to read their books,
learn how to manufacture and operate their cannon and realize his aspiration
to travel the world.

In the face of Perry's demands, the shogunate conducted a national
survey, calling for solutions to the foreign threat. The shogunate received
hundreds of responses, the majority of which, broadly speaking, represented
either of two conflicting viewpoints. On one side were those who proposed
opening the country to foreigners. Their opponents advocated preserving the
centuries-old policy of exclusionism. But neither side offered a constructive
means for realizing their proposals. In contrast, the memorial submitted by
one unknown samurai was clear, brilliant, progressive, and included concrete
advice for the future of Japan. In his memorial Kaishu pointed out that Perry
had been able to enter Edo Bay unimpeded only because Japan did not have a
navy to defend itself. He urged the shogunate to recruit men for a navy. He
dared to propose that the military government break age-old tradition and
go beyond birthright to recruit men of ability, rather than the sons of the
social elite - and certainly there was nobody in all of Edo more poignantly
aware of this necessity than this impoverished, brilliant young man from the
lower echelons of samurai society. Kaishu advised that the shogunate lift
its ban on the construction of warships needed for national defense; that
it manufacture Western-style cannon and rifles; that it reform the military
according to modern Western standards, and establish military academies. Pointing
out the great technological advances being achieved in Europe and the Untied
States, Kaishu challenged the narrow-minded traditionalists who opposed the
adoption of Western military technology and systems.

Within the first few years after the arrival of Perry, all of
Kaishu's proposals were adopted by the shogunate. In January 1855, Kaishu
was recruited into government service. In Japanese chronology this corresponded
to the second year of the Era of Stable Government, to which purpose Kaishu
dedicated the remaining forty-four years of his life. In September, Kaishu
sailed to Nagasaki, as one of a select group of thirty-seven Tokugawa retainers
to study at the new Nagasaki Naval Academy, where he remained for two and
a half years.

In January 1860 Katsu Kaishu commanded the famed Kanrin Maru,
a tiny triple-masted schooner, on the first authorized overseas voyage in
the history of the Tokugawa Shogunate. Captain Katsu and Company were bound
for San Francisco. They preceded the Japanese delegation dispatched to Washington
aboard the U.S. steam frigate Powhatan to ratify Japan's first commercial
treaty. After the arrival of the Powhatan, they would return to Japan
to report the safe arrival of the delegation. But more significantly for Captain
Katsu and Company was the opportunity to demonstrate the maritime skills they
had acquired under their Dutch instructors at Nagasaki, 'for,' as Kaishu emphasized,
'the glory of the Japanese Navy.'

Kaishu remained in San Francisco for nearly two months, observing
American society, culture and technology. He contrasted American society to
that of feudal Japan, where a person was born into one of four castes ­
warrior, peasant, artisan, merchant ­ and, for the most part, remained
in that caste for life. Of particular interest to Kaishu, who was determined
to modernize and indeed democratize his own nation, were certain aspects of
American democracy. 'There is no distinction between soldier, peasant, artisan
or merchant. Any man can be engaged in commerce,' he observed. 'Even a high-ranking
officer is free to set up business once he resigns or retires.'

Generally, the samurai, who received a stipend from their feudal
lord, looked down upon the men of the merchant class, and considered business
for monetary profit a base occupation. 'Usually people walking through town
do not wear swords, regardless of whether they are soldiers, merchants or
government officials,' while in Japan it was a samurai's strict obligation
to be armed at all times. Kaishu also observed the peculiar relationship between
men and women in American society. 'A man accompanied by his wife will always
hold her hand as he walks.' The immense cultural and social gaps notwithstanding,
Kaishu, the outsider among his countrymen, was pleased with the Americans.
'I had not expected the Americans to express such delight at our arrival to
San Francisco, nor for all the people of the city, from the government officials
on down, to make such great efforts to treat us so well.'

In 1862, Kaishu was appointed vice-commissioner of the Tokugawa
Navy. He established his naval academy in Kobe in 1863, with the help of his
right-hand man, Sakamoto Ryoma. The following year Kaishu was promoted to
the post of navy commissioner, and received the honorary title Awa-no-Kami,
Protector of the Province of Awa. In October 1864, Kaishu, who had thus far
enjoyed the ear of the shogun, was recalled to Edo, dismissed from his post
and placed under house arrest for harboring known enemies of the Tokugawa.
His naval academy was closed down, and his generous stipend reduced to a bare
minimum.

In 1866 the shogun's forces suffered a series of humiliating
defeats at the hands of the revolutionary Choshu Army. Kaishu was subsequently
reinstated to his former post by Tokugawa Yoshinobu, Head of the House of
Tokugawa, who in the following December would become the fifteenth and last
Tokugawa Shogun. Lord Yoshinobu did not like Kaishu, just as Kaishu did not
like Lord Yoshinobu. Kaishu was a maverick within the government, who had
broken age-old tradition and even law by imparting his expertise to enemies
of the shogunate; who openly criticized his less talented colleagues at Edo
for their inability, if not blind refusal, to realize that the years, and
perhaps even days, of Tokugawa rule were numbered; who in the Grand Hall at
Edo Castle had braved punishment and even death by advising then-Shogun Tokugawa
Iemochi to abdicate; and who was now recalled to service because Yoshinobu
and his aides knew that Kaishu was the only man in all of Edo who wielded
both the respect and trust of the revolutionaries.

In August 1866, Navy Commissioner Katsu Kaishu was dispatched
to Miyajima ­ Island of the Shrine ­ in the domain of Hiroshima to
meet representatives of Choshu. Before departing he told Lord Yoshinobu, 'I'll
have things settled with the Choshu men within one month. If I'm not back
by then, you can assume that they've cut off my head.' Kaishu was aware of
the grave danger to his life as an emissary of the Tokugawa, but nevertheless
traveled alone, without a single bodyguard. Shortly after successfully negotiating
a peace with Choshu, the outsider resigned his post, due to irreconcilable
differences with the powers that were, and returned to his home in Edo.

In October 1867, Shogun Tokugawa Yoshinobu announced his abdication
and the restoration of power to the emperor. But diehard oppositionists within
the Tokugawa camp were determined to fight the forces of the new imperial
government. The leaders of the new imperial government were equally determined
to annihilate the remnants of the Tokugawa, to ensure that it would never
rise again. Civil war broke out near Kyoto in January 1868. Although the imperial
forces, led by Saigo Kichinosuke of Satsuma, were greatly outnumbered, they
routed the army of the former shogun in just three days. The new government¹s
leaders now demanded that Yoshinobu commit ritual suicide, and set March 15
as the date fifty thousand imperial troops would lay siege to Edo Castle,
and, in so doing, subject the entire city to the flames of war.

The services of Katsu Kaishu were once again indispensable to
the Tokugawa. Kaishu desperately wanted to avoid a civil war, which he feared
would incite foreign agression. But he was nevertheless bound by his duty
as a direct retainer of the Tokugawa to serve in the best interest of his
liege lord, Tokugawa Yoshinobu. In March 1868, with a formidable fleet of
twelve warships at his disposal, this son of a petty samurai was the most
powerful man in Edo. And as head of the Tokugawa army, he was determined to
burn Edo Castle rather than relinquish it in battle, and to wage a bloody
civil war against Saigo's forces.

When Kaishu was informed of the imperial government's plans
for imminent attack, he immediately sent a letter to Saigo. In this letter
Kaishu wrote that the retainers of the Tokugawa were an inseparable part of
the new Japanese nation. Instead of fighting with one another, those of the
new government and the old must cooperate in order to deal with the very real
threat of the foreign powers, whose legations in Japan anxiously watched the
great revolution which had consumed the Japanese nation for these past fifteen
years.

Saigo replied with a set of conditions, including the peaceful
surrender of Edo Castle, which must be met if the House of Tokugawa was to
be allowed to survive, Yoshinobu's life spared, and war avoided. At an historic
meeting with Saigo on March 14, one day before the planned attack, Kaishu
accepted Saigo's conditions, and went down in history as the man who not only
saved the lives and property of Edo's one million inhabitants, but also the
entire Japanese nation.

Romulus Hillsborough is the author
of RYOMA - Life of a Renaissance Samurai
(Ridgeback Press, 1999) and Samurai Sketches: From
the Bloody Final Years of the Shogun (Ridgeback Press,
2001) RYOMA is the only
biographical novel of Sakamoto Ryoma in the English language. Samurai Sketches
is a collection of historical sketches, never before presented in English,
depicting men and events during the revolutionary years of mid-19th century
Japan. Reviews and more information about these books are available at www.ridgebackpress.com.